VMWare Exec Climbs Kilimanjaro, Delivers Hybrid Cloud

Panasonic has been touting its new lineup of Toughpad tablets, saying that they enable productivity from any location on earth. Richard Munro, the VMWare CTO for vCloud Air, recently took Panasonic up on its bold claims.
In fact, Munro decided to take his Panasonic Toughpad FZ-X1 tablet to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro to see if he could deliver hybrid cloud from the summit of the famed African mountain. After making the trek to the 19,340 foot summit of Kilimanjaro, Munro pulled out his Panasonic Toughpad, connected his BGAN Explorer 700 global satellite modem and within minutes, he had built a virtual machine hosted within his VMware hybrid cloud.
“I was keen to show customers that with a true hybrid cloud not only can you deliver enterprise IT in the public cloud and from one of the most extreme environments on earth, but you can also do things in minutes that would take a traditional IT department months to do on-premises,” said Munro.
Munro’s demonstration further proves that as long as you have the right hardware, you can deploy, administrate and grow your cloud infrastructure from any place on earth.
In a press release on the event, Panasonic General Manager Jan Kaempfer writes, “The FZ-X1 is rugged to withstand drops, extreme temperatures and even water submersion. It has a crystal clear, sunlight readable HD touchscreen display for easy use.”
Kaempfer adds, “It really was the ideal companion for Richard to take on his vCloud Air challenge.”
The VMWare vCloud challenge has us thinking. What’s the most unique place you’ve deployed a cloud? What did you use to get the job done? What tools and infrastructure did you use and why did you choose this method to build your cloud?
If you’ve taken up your own “Build your cloud anywhere” challenge albeit through necessity or preference, we’d love to hear your story in the comments section below.